


Heatwave

by fairlightscales



Series: 33 and 1/3 [16]
Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: 1970s, 20th Century, Adultery, Alternate Universe - 1970s, F/M, Family, Heatwave, Ladybirds, Ladybugs, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Reconciliation, Ross and Dem, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25556515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairlightscales/pseuds/fairlightscales
Summary: Close encountersSummer 1976
Relationships: Demelza Carne/Ross Poldark
Series: 33 and 1/3 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1420387
Comments: 45
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dem is pregnant with Clowance.  
> This is the end of 'Supper's Ready', the piece that was meant to proceed 'Sympathy For The Devil'.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Close encounters

The Long Field was mowed short, for Jud worried the dry, hot weather might start a fire. This might have been perfect to play with Jeremy's football but the days were hot and even Jeremy lost his enthusiasm in the relentless sun. He and Papa had their fun but had to admit it was far too hot to continue. Jeremy stood in the bathtub while Papa scrubbed him clean with a soapy cloth and poured water over him, to rinse him. It poured down his body, running past his feet in into the drain. Jeremy felt better, being clean was better. He watched sweat trickle down Papa's nose. From his vantage point, Jeremy could see how sweaty Papa was, on his brow, the smell. Papa smelled... "Mama and the baby are too big to wash me, she can't wash you! Will Prudie wash you?" Ross felt his face contort as he put the ewer to the side, in the tub next to Jeremy and laughed to the point that he lay his forehead on the side of the bathtub. He looked up at Jeremy from his vantage point. His son, grinning at him, wet haired and clean and bright eyed. Jeremy smiled down at him. Some of Papa's hair lay over the side of the bathtub, eyes scrunched, laughing to the point he could see the filling in one of his teeth. Papa looked up at him with his special look. The happy look that let Jeremy know that he was the best boy in the world... Papa was often quiet these days. Thinking. Jeremy could see that Papa was considering very grown up things, sometimes, but Papa still smiled, and joked and played with him. Still played his guitar too. Being a grown up seemed like hard work but Papa still smiled and pulled himself out of his thinking to be Jeremy's playmate and friend and admire him as he began the start of a new, important job. Jeremy would be a big brother soon. Papa was proud of him and Jeremy was excited to be big and greet the new brother or sister who would join them. "I can manage, Jeremy," smiled Ross as he sat back up. "I can pour the water over myself..." He helped Jeremy over the side of the tub and dried him with a towel. In blue shorts and a yellow and blue striped tee shirt, hair still damp, not as long as Ross' but not closely trimmed either, Jeremy scampered downstairs to play in the parlor for that room was the coolest, kept dim with the curtains closed, and two box fans that were very cooling if you trained them on you and did not move too much. 

Ross peeled his tee shirt off, so damp from sweat it clung to him, as he ran a few inches of water in the tub. It was so hot, the weather, playing with Jeremy's ball, the cut off jeans he wore surpassed "sweaty". They smelled. No hope for them. He tossed them and his underwear on the tiled floor next to the shirt and sat in the tub. The water didn't reach the top of his thighs and he was still greeted by his own odor as he lay in the tub. Ross did not wash right away, though he dearly needed it, sweat pasted his back to the tub and sweat ran down to the point that a drop of it stood at the tip of his nose before it fell and rolled down his chest. He lay his head to the side and just sat, enjoying how cool the porcelain of the tub felt. The government admonished the public to conserve water during these weeks of drought. Ross had chuckled over the appointed "Minster of Drought" going as far to suggest that one of the ways British public could conserve water was to "take a bath with a friend". Ross and Dem shared baths throughout their marriage and now that it was sanctioned by the government Dem was too pregnant to indulge the habit. She was also still harboring sore feelings towards Ross and might not have wanted the close proximity anyway. He stared at the ceiling. Somewhere, in some elegant, European holiday spot, Geoffrey Charles and Valentine were braving the hot summer somewhere far away. Somewhere, Elizabeth was vacationing with her sons. With his son... He had relinquished any claim upon him. George had said, in bitterness, perhaps neither of them were Valentine's father and Liza took it. Did not flinch. Did not show irritation or offense. She raised her eyebrow. Cool. Cold. The chilly elegance in her weaponized to control both of them. Valentine's blood type excluded George as his father. Elizabeth confessed her dalliance with Ross after she had been widowed. She certainly knew who fathered her second child. But she ruled over them both. George who relished entering the higher rungs of society with the ascension this marriage had given him, having made such a show over their nuptials that leaving her and admitting himself a cuckold was impossible. Ross who was pinned in his place having made the largest, messiest error of his life. He could claim nothing. That he slept with Liza hurt Dem. He and Liza had a child. Valentine's begetting, a disastrous night of anger, ego and greed, nearly broke up his marriage to the one woman who meant the most to him. The mother of Julia. The mother of Jeremy. The mother of their third child on the way... He absently started washing himself. The heavy scent of his perspiration, sharp and unpleasant. The wan suds, dripping from the soapy cloth, beginning to do its job. Elizabeth had both of her men in a vise. She held all the cards. Spoke to them with an authority borne of knowing that both men, still, would lay their cloak upon the ground, that she not sully her feet. She knew that they still were held in her thrall, as Francis had been. She spoke to both of them laying the law over her consorts, ignoring George's insult. "I am a Warleggan. Valentine is a Warleggan." She looked to George. "You wanted my heritage for your advancement. Congratulations, you've got it, 'for better or worse'. And as for you," She looked to Ross. Her tone of voice brooked no argument, her gaze held no love. "This child is not half yours." Liza's eyes narrowed. "He's all mine." Ross wondered, in that moment, if had Liza affection for either of them, anywhere in her. Had he and George, both, been useful idiots serving whatever purpose she deemed necessary...? Ross ran water from the bath tap into the ewer. Rinsed himself and then made a proper job of soaping himself. He had hoped to just wash in the water and use it to water the lilac tree but he was too far gone for that. The water had too much soap in it now to do that. The grass had turned brown and Dem's garden was dried out and straggly but they watered the lilac tree so it remained in health. He leaned forward and dumped water over his head. He scooped the water around him to finish up, splashing himself with tactical aim. He gave under his arms a second attention and, satisfied to be properly clean, left the tub. He pulled the plug. A more virtuous person would put it down the toilets but it was so scummed and unpleasant looking Ross could not bring himself to. The dirt would go down the drain. His sins would remain within him.

"Wha the world be comin' to! T'ain't right, eatin' kedgeree for supper!" Jud, a man of habit and setting great store by his life being lived fittyways, was offended that Prudie should foist rice upon them all at supper and said so from behind his newspaper. These days, the Paynters ate at Nampara and left their own kitchen unused and cool in the evening. "Oh, hush yer clack! There ain't no potatoes in the shops, none t'be 'ad... All died a death afore the farmers could get 'em out the ground! Ee LIKES kedgeree!" said Prudie, wiping her brow with her handkerchief. "Of a morn!" groused Jud. "Kedgeree be breakfast! T'ain't right eatin' breakfast at suppertime. Rice ain't a workin' man's dinner!" Dem trudged into the kitchen just hearing the tail end of Jud's complaint, murmuring, tiredly, "It's just as well to have rice, Jud. Who'd want the oven on for potatoes today?! It's too fucking hot!" Jud put his paper down and laughed like a drain. He got up and pulled Dem's chair out for her as Prudie slammed down her wooden spoon on the counter next to the stove. She turned with her fists on her hips, hair lank from the heat and looking very disapproving "Now don't be telling me ee's gonna pop t'day an' all! Don't be tellin' me tha!" Dem pushed a curl of hair out of her eye as she sat down, gingerly. Jud sat back down too. He took up his newspaper again and continued to chuckle behind it. Dem looked tired of the heat, tired of being pregnant. "Why should I "pop" now? I haven't got pains... It's _hot_!" Prudie glowered at Dem. "I ain't never heard a mouth on ee like a miner less ee be droppin' a babby! Tha child's gonna fall out of ee effin' and blindin'! Master Jeremy be about. Ee needs t'act like a lady!" Dem gave a tired smile. "Yes, Prudie." Saved from hearing his mother's disgrace, Jeremy came in. Rather than buns or biscuits, Prudie let them have orange jelly on these hot afternoons. She scored a flat pan of it with a knife, cutting it up so they tumbled into a teacup in a pile of little cubes, like dice. Mama lay a loving hand on his head as he came near and he greeted her and his mysterious sibling by kissing her smock, kissing the side of her bump and giving his mother a hug. "OH!" Jeremy felt the baby roil about through Mama's skin, a very strange feeling. "Baby's so happy to see you!" said Mama. The Paynter's were charmed. The tiredness and ill temper in Dem vanished. Jeremy smiled, his face laying against Mama's bump and the baby inside was happy he was near. Maybe baby was just as excited for jelly as he was. He smiled up at her. Mama kissed his forehead and then he hugged her bump again. The lumps and bumps of the embroidered flowers on her smock rubbed against his cheek, the coarse fabric moving gently from the baby pushing about inside Mama. "Can the baby taste the jelly?" asked Jeremy, happy to believe this possible. "Maybe..." smiled Dem. Ross clean, dressed but starting to feel sweaty again came in to join them. He'd not admit it but Prudie knew Ross still liked jelly on hot, summer afternoons, though he often suggested that he was just joining in for Jeremy's benefit. He stopped to admire Jeremy who smiled at him, clinging to an armful of Dem and their friend, still homed inside her. Jeremy trotted to Ross' side. "Papa! Baby said hello and wants jelly!" Ross laughed. "Then the baby is surely a Poldark..." joked Papa. Jeremy laughed and went to take his seat, climbing up into his seat, himself, because he was a big boy. Ross pushed Jeremy's chair closer to the table and then sat himself. He regretted the remark for Dem's smile faded a little at it and Prudie turned to go to the refrigerator a little too quickly. A little too aware of the danger of such an offhand remark, however well meant. The thrust and counter thrust between them, of even an innocent joke could open a chasm between Ross and Dem, these days... A resettling. Jud, whose reaction was guarded and obscured by his newspaper said, "Ain't no rain to be 'ad, no how! It'll be a storm like no other by the time it be fit t'rain..." Ross, grateful for a neutral topic, nodded his 'thank you' to Prudie who gave him his cup of jelly cubes after Jeremy received his with a sympathetic smile. "I'll be glad to see the back of this heatwave," Dem sighed. Ross smiled at her, affectionately. She smiled back. Truce... She ate her jelly and got up to go back to the parlor and not move. Dem felt hot and ungainly. She often felt self conscious in her last trimester too. Ross swore he thought no less of her looks when she was heavily pregnant but she felt ill at ease in her self. Felt 'ugly'. Pa's worst insults were always dished out to Mum when her time was near due. Dem could sense now, as an adult, that Pa was probably annoyed at not being able to sleep with Mum but the little Demi that haunted the corners of Dem's heart and mind worried that, perhaps, all men felt that way, deep down. Elizabeth probably never looked like Dem did, near the end, waddling about like a old duck. She probably looked like a princess... Dem shook her morbid fancies. She sat down and, because she had trouble leaning forward while seated, called to Garrick who tore himself away from the box fan to greet his mistress. She scratched his head and fussed over him, surreptitiously checking for ticks. No crawlers... "That's my good boy..." Jeremy ran past, like a streak of light past the doorway, ready to try playing outside once more. "Stay near the house!" said Ross as turned into the parlor. "Yes, Papa!" Dem smiled a tired smile. "Jeremy's brave, or maybe the house is so warm it doesn't make a difference, being outside..." Ross brought the box fan nearer to her, angled it more in her direction.

"That better...?" asked Ross.

"Yes. Thank you, Ross." said Dem

They sat, quiet. Ross. Dem. Garrick. The scent of haddock and seasonings wafted through the house. At the point that Ross stood, to get his Gibson, they heard Jeremy yelling from outside. "Mama! Papa! Come and see! They're everywhere!" Ross looked to Dem, ready to tell her to stay put but she used her arms to help hoist herself up from the sofa, looking unwilling to be told what to do when heeding Jeremy's call. He took her by the arm and led her to the door. They opened it to see Jeremy doing a peculiar dance. Coming near to them on tiptoe, moving with care and planting each footstep in deliberation. As he came nearer they could see what Jeremy meant. The brown, tired grass shimmered with ladybirds. Everywhere. Jeremy shouted in a panic, "Mama! They're walking on me!" He came to the doorway, anxious not to step on the insects as they massed about the ground and landed on him. Walking on his arms, his clothes. Ross saw them in his hair and knelt down to try to brush them off of his shirt. "No, Papa!" shrieked Jeremy. Some flew away but some had been crushed as Ross began to wipe them away with his hand. Dem came forward. Her balance was poor for her belly was so extended, but she bent forward, bracing her self, holding the side of the doorway, and blew gently on Jeremy's shoulder. The ladybugs flew away, pushed off their host by Dem's gentle breath. Ross chuckled and started to help. Dem braced one hand on the doorjamb and one on Ross' shoulder, to help her stand, lean forward. Jeremy watched the ladybirds fly away from him, even as they started to land on and investigate his parents. There were ladybirds landing in their hair, one crawled along Papa's eyebrow. Jeremy started to laugh. Mama and Papa blew the ladybirds away and when they came quite near his face he giggled for their faces were near, and they smiled at him and their breath smelled, sweetly, of orange jelly. Ross smiled at this peculiar chore. His giggling son, not wanting to bring harm to the ladybirds, Dem's gentle, sensible solution and the quiet feeling of love between them. All so near, all together with even the unborn child as part of that closeness. They looked at him, this way and that, and pronounced Jeremy free of ladybirds. "You'd best go inside, my lover," smiled Mama. "They think you're a sweet!" Jeremy was laughing for there was still a ladybird on Papa's eyebrow. Jeremy ran to the kitchen to tell the Paynters about the ladybirds. Ross helped Dem stand up straight and she laughed, merrily. The kind of joyous, loving laugh that had been so absent these days. Ross smiled. "You have them in your hair..." he said. Dem grinned. "So do you! There's one on your eyebrow!" Ross looked up, as if it was possible to see one's own eyebrows that way. Dem laughed as he held her closer, holding her arms with a firm grasp, making sure Dem did not fall. Protecting her and their child as the ladybirds continued their invasion. She blew gently by Ross' eyebrow. The ladybird flew away and Dem kissed where it had been, sweetly. Ross blew one from her collarbone and placed a kiss there, soft and reverent. They worked quietly. Blowing ladybirds away and nursing where they had been with kisses. Their hair, his ear, her arm, Ross holding it aloft like a beau on a dance floor. The ladybirds fluttered away and Ross kissed, up, and up and up... Her neck held no ladybirds, but he kissed her there. His cheek held no ladybirds but she kissed him there. The soft breath of the other upon them, the soft press of their lips. Dem leaned back against the doorjamb. She should sit soon... Ross knew Dem should sit down. They would do so. Dem put her hand to his cheek, so softly. Ross looked to her. He was troubled by his feelings. This woman did not deserve what he put her through and she still could look at him with so much love... Dem could see Ross' thought. 'I am SO sorry, my love...' in his eyes, in his face... She refused to sigh. Somehow, the trials they bore would be faced and being 'Mrs. Ross Poldark' insured that life would continue to hold disruptions. Such was the price of living with and loving a renegade. Her renegade... He put his hand on her cheek and his other, gently at her side. Moving to support the small of her back and feeling the baby move and press against him as he drew near. They shared a look. Her three children. His four children. Their love... They would soldier on. She stood away from the door frame, buttressed by Ross holding her lower back. Ross blinked his request and Dem granted it, parted her lips and let him kiss her in passion. He brought his hand from her cheek and let it rest on her bump. 

Prudie came through, into the hall, to announce it was time for supper. She slowed. The house was dim and it made the light in the doorway hover about them, too bright. Leaving them a dark silhouette at first for her eyes had to adjust. Ross kissed Dem and Dem returned it in passion. Standing in the open front doorway. The grass beyond strangely moving for Master Jeremy was correct, the ladybirds had covered everything. Every part of the brittle brown grass hovering and moving from all the ladybirds beyond Ross and Dem, standing there, both barefoot, Ross, all legs in his shorts, Dem, big as a barrel, their babby, still settin' in 'er, under Ross' gentle hand as they kissed each other with all their might. 'Who'll look after these motherless grufflers...?' thought Prudie. She and Jud would retire and the poor lambs would have to fend for themselves. In Ross' unruly moods and poor choices. In Dem's willingness to forgive... How long can the maid keep forgiving...? Their little'uns... Ross pulled free first. Relishing the fact that Dem had not, fearing that she would end it first, dismiss him. His greed. The poor woman needed to sit down. He lay his head, briefly, at her shoulder and felt a tingle of happiness, happiness that lit through him, as Dem kissed his hair. A seal of approval. He stood, to help Dem back in, to sit. They turned, froze briefly to see Prudie in the hall. She smiled at them. Ross helped Dem walk forward into the house as Prudie said,

"Supper's ready."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> football: soccer ball
> 
> kedgeree: smoked haddock, hard boiled eggs and rice
> 
> jelly: jell-o, gelatin dessert
> 
> ladybird: ladybugs
> 
> 'The Renegade' was the title for 'Ross Poldark' in its original, 1950s publication in America. The titles were restored to American books when the first Poldark TV show aired in the 1970s.


	2. Do You Want To Know A Secret?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goings on in the heat of the night

The nights were just as bad. The heat did not dissipate. The air was heavy and everyone went to bed with a sheen of perspiration over them. Ross helped Dem out of the bathtub. It could not be much longer, Prudie had been watching her like a hawk all week. Dem's labor was often presaged by her swearing in a manner only Ross had the cheek to indulge in regularly. The oppressive heat and fatigue of feeling humongous made Dem let fly at teatime the other afternoon and ever since the Prudie kept an eye on her mistress. Dem felt she was not likely to give birth until her proper due date two weeks away but bore Prudie's surveillance with good grace. Now with the Paynters gone home until morning and Jeremy in bed, or sprawled across the limp sheets of his bed just as sweaty as his parents, willing the box fan set on a chair in his direction to blow cooler as he dropped off to sleep, Dem called to Ross for she was too ungainly to get out of the tub herself.

"Ross?"

He put his head round the door, about to ask if she was alright and then grinned. "Well, well!" he tsked with a smile. Dem had drawn a bath that was some inches more than was patriotic in the request to conserve water during the heatwave. "What would the Minister of Drought say?!" Dem, leaned back with her arm draped just so at the tub's edge, said primly, "He would say I am a good Briton for taking a bath with a friend!" Ross laughed. "Could you help me out, please Ross?" She averted her eyes. Ross was looking at her in the water and she always felt self conscious when she was pregnant. Ross knew Dem had what he considered needless embarrassment over her pregnancies. She looked darling with her bump so large and her legs and arms so slender. Her breasts were larger and her skin glowed from within, even in these punishingly hot days. Ross thought Dem enchanting but she never truly believed him. With a circumspect smile, Ross came forward and braced her back with one hand as he grasped her other hand firmly. She stood in a rush of water leaving her body and stepped out of the tub. Freshly washed against Ross who was sweating. "I think I'm mussing you up once more..." laughed Ross. She was damp against him as he helped her sit on a chair draped with a towel. She looked him up and down. Ross' pajama bottoms were wetted in streaks from her clutching him. His hairline glistened with beads of sweat. He smiled at her and their little friend under her skin. "I've mussed you!" laughed Dem. He looked down at himself as he gave her a towel. "Maybe it will cool me off..." Dem grinned to hear how wistful he sounded. Everyone dreamed of relief these hot days. They did not drain the tub. Dem soaked herself and scrubed herself with a washcloth but refrained from using soap. Ross would scoop out the bath water in the morning to water the lilac tree.

After she dried off they lay on the bed. Ross brought one of the box fans up from the parlor. It stood in a industrial hum on the dresser aimed at their bed, imposing in its metal, wire cage, so fast and vicious with its broad metal blades spinning. It was valiant and better than nothing but it only did so much. Pillows were abandoned as they seemed to collect warmth and compound it. The bed beneath them had a stale damp scent from their perspiration, the air skimmed over them but the relief did not last. Dem found it impossible to lie on her back and Ross lay on his back in a forlorn sweatiness. "I don't ever remember it being hot this long..." said Dem her left hand playing with the fingers of Ross right hand, the musk of his sweat somehow not unpleasant, a concentrated scent of her man. "I remember it being hot when I was thirteen..." said Ross, thinking. Dem blinked. If Ross was thirteen she would have been a toddler. She thought back to a photo of her with her mother, one of the few she could recall seeing. She had a knotted handkerchief on her head, protection from the sun, and sat in Mum's lap, smiling. Mum had seven of them... "Dem...?" asked Ross, ever vigilant at any change in her. Prudie swore Dem would "pop soon". Dem smiled wanly, she had been lost in thought but everyone was on tenderhooks believing she would have the baby as soon as a sneeze. "I was little then..." said Dem. Ross smiled. From Dem's vantage point she could see his smile, the sweat on his nose. He turned his head to face her, brushed his nose dry with his hand in irritation. No relief. He smiled at Dem. She had been twelve when they met. If one had a crystal ball, scrying a little kid crouching with a puppy in a grotty London alley would not have seemed like the singlemost good fortune Ross had ever known. His West Country girl. He said as much. Ross stroked Dem's hair reverently and whispered, "My West Country girl..." Her eyes blinked starlight at him, even in the darkness of the room. They stared at each other in the dark. Kisses were easier these days. Dem had relinquished the sharpest edge of her anger over Valentine. They had come to a truce in recent days. The deep whisper of his voice and the bright light of her eyes were like a lovecall, two creatures who communicated in a primal language of love. A smear of sweat at her brow, at his nose, the sheets catching the moisture as they both leaned nearer. Ross' hand at Dem's hair. Dem's mouth parting open in a soft capture of Ross' tongue. A kiss. To close one's eyes to the heat of the night, the smell of their bed as they wilted in the heat of the night, the heightened realization that man's power to charm could still be evident in that moment, so stewed in their own juices. Sweat did not matter between them. Musk served to bind them, so intimately bound that what was repellent in a stranger was a fascination in a loved person. Dem closed her eyes and felt her body in degrees of pleasure, registered degrees of pleasure. The baby was moving and that gave Dem happiness. Ross kissed her and that gave her happiness. Her loins twitched in a stark pull of lust. A secret happiness. The air from the fan was a teasing caress over Ross' skin and he felt moisture as he turned more to face her, at his thighs, at the mattress, the places the fan couldn't reach, the prickle of sweat at the base of his cock as he sighed into Dem's mouth. Dem's low moan brought a new urgency to their kiss. "Do you...?" whispered Ross. "Yes..." said Dem as she pulled at his pajamas, tugged at the waistband, touched him. Ross smiled out of their kiss. He pulled them off and tossed them over the side. Dem still was uncomfortable on her back but their were other ways. Damp from sweat, damp from desire, Ross explored his wife's body as she lay in a gentle twist, her thighs parting beneath the mound of infant and skin as Ross crawled further down the bed. She closed her eyes. Ross' forehead felt damp at her belly. A panicked thought that they might bring on her labor came and went. In his attentions, daring a pleasure that might summon the baby in its contracting grip she could not bring herself to cease them. He was gentle and insistent, Ross' tongue became a secret creature chasing what pleasure there was to be had in a secret place, a secret time. A wet rasp and insistent. A feast. Ross growled a little, stroking himself as she strove to be quiet but whined an ecstasy at his victory. Dem gasped sharply with a yelp. He brought his head up suddenly. "Are you alright?!" Dem answered somewhat cross eyed. It had been very strong. Dem's cry worried Ross for the sake of the baby but it trebled his erection. She nodded as she lay on the bed. "Yes..." she gasped. "Yes..." Ross sat up on his knees and watched Dem grin at him. Permission. With care he came round to settle himself behind her, so like a panther or a tiger stalking or pacing in a cage. His hair hanging limp in the heat in the confines of the four poster bed. His cock stiffened and buoyant in a brief glimpse as he moved around her in the dark. A beast of prey. "Oh God..." sighed Ross. Shallow. Wet and very slow. Careful. A permission in Dem's contented sigh, a rebuke as the baby kicked under his hand. Intense pleasure but impossible not to laugh. "They can't sleep in all the fuss!" laughed Dem. Ross chuckled and it dissolved into a choked moan. His care not to thrust too deeply was a boon. The sensation was gorgeous. He did not last long.

They lay still. Dem was too pregnant to want to do much of anything but the state of the sheets was too provocative to want to let Prudie see them. The sweat, the stale smell, the proofs of their activities. "We should put the sheets in the tub..." said Dem. Ross smiled at her neck and she giggled. She felt his smile. They were agreed. The sheets, so far gone anyway, were utilized to tidy themselves up and Dem put one of Ross' shirts on. Ross put the pajama trousers back on. The evidence of night heaped in their arms. The seeming reproach of the baby, encroaching on its rest. The furtive need to secret their goings on from Prudie, (Ross had the same misgivings. As pregnant as Dem was the Paynters might have disapproved of the state of the sheets, not found humor in it). The dark humor to be had in watering Julia's lilac tree with a slurry of her mother's bathwater, her parents sweat and her father's semen held no sadness somehow. Julia's placenta had been put under the lilac tree and like some ancient, pagan ritual they would water the tree in their essences. A wry necessity of the drought. An unconscious, reflexive Lughnasadh ritual, an offering to the land itself, like good Britons...

Like good Britons who would please the Minister of Drought, using the washing machine at night was prudent for it would not draw community water when it was most needed, the day time. Ross swished the stains clean and rung the sheets out as best he could. He carried them in a sopped heap as he followed Dem ambling down the stairs clutching the banister and rubbing what she believed to be the baby's back. It was awake and cranky. "Papa?" They both turned on the stair to see Jeremy blinking sleepily at them. "Can't you sleep, sweetheart?" asked Dem. "It's too hot!" complained Jeremy. "I was asleep and then I wasn't!" Ross looked up at him over the wet sheets heaped in his arms, small plunking drops of water escaping them, hitting the steps now and again in dark, round spots that lost their wet gloss as they dried. "Then help me with the wash, Jeremy. Pull the sheets from your bed. I'll come back up to help you." Jeremy smiled. Chores in the middle of the night were exotic rather than tedious and the idea of fresh sheets seemed like heaven. "Yes, Papa!" Jeremy scurried away. Dem went back upstairs to put knickers on. Ross brought the wet sheets to the washing machine. And waited at the bottom of the stairs to let Dem pass. In his shirt with the towels they had used in her arm as she loped down the steps all legs and belly on her way to the washing machine in the alcove by the kitchen. Jeremy, properly awake, looked over the banister rail dragging sheets behind him like a coronation robe. "Papa! I did it myself!" Ross grinned. Garrick's hair on the sheets from dragging the floor was probably inevitable. "Good work! Let me take them for the wash and we'll make up the beds with clean ones." smiled Ross. He bade Dem sit in the kitchen and shook out Jeremy's sheets. It was two in the morning. "Do you want tea, Dem?" asked Ross, starting the wash before dressing the beds anew. "Dem smiled from the kitchen table. "I think I want ice cream..." Jeremy piped up in astonishment. "ICE CREAM!!!! Now!?" Ross laughed. "Jeremy, help me make the beds and then we will have ice cream!" Jeremy bound up the stairs with a shriek of happiness so loud he woke Garrick who froze in a sleepy befuddled conundrum, follow Jeremy who was yelling with glee or see to his mistress across the room. "Garrick," whispered Dem. "Here, Garrick..." He trotted to sit by Dem and they waited for Ross and Jeremy to make up the beds with clean sheets.

Jeremy was a help, very good at putting pillows in their cases. Very good at bouncing on the beds like a trampoline and thus proving the beds acceptable in their fresh sheets. "Do you always have ice cream parties at night?" asked Jeremy. Being grown up was full of surprises. To have ice cream in the middle of the night was a habit he had not believed possible. Ross shook his head even as his eyes still followed Jeremy bouncing up and down. "We do not! Mama has never suggested such a thing and I have known her for many years!" said Ross. Jeremy bounced onto his backside with the flourish of an acrobat to Ross' applause. "Does the baby want ice cream? Did I ask for things when I was in Mama? I don't remember!" Ross smiled and offered his hand. "We must ask Mama, she would remember..." They went back to the kitchen. Garrick was asleep again. Dem had collected three teacups and three spoons and sat at the table in the kitchen, patiently, hearing Jeremy's excited chatter and Ross' responses, too far away to hear proper words but the give and take of the two of them, to and fro in both bedrooms, fetching clean sheets and making the beds. The silence of the house amplified the sound. A murmuring that was cheering to hear. A papa bear and a baby bear making beds. A mama bear dispensing ice cream rather than porridge and a new little one grousing at its naughty parents. They would join them and be a new voice in the house, a new person... "Mama!" cried Jeremy. Garrick, who would not be fooled twice, gave a snort of wakefulness and then slept once more. "Did I ask for treats when I was a baby?!" Dem smiled. "I seem to remember you liked milk very much..." Jeremy came to hug her as Ross rummaged the freezer. "No! When I was IN you, Mama! Like the baby!" Dem laughed. Ross came to the table bearing a tub of Raspberry Ripple ice cream. Dem laughed as she put her arm around Jeremy and Ross admired all three of them, in a night kitchen tableaux that cheered him. Jeremy and his little sibling surrounded in Dem's sunny veil of delighted laughter. "You often asked for chocolate, my lover..." Jeremy could well believe it for he liked chocolate very much. "I did?!" asked Jeremy. Ross' eyes scrunched in his amusement over Jeremy's query. Dem nodded. "Prudie warned me you might be born with chocolate drops instead of proper eyes if I kept eating so much chocolate!" Jeremy hugged his mother with a sense of satisfaction. Even inside her, she knew what he liked and strove to make him happy. Ross gave a generous helping of ice cream to each of them, somewhat defying the small teacups by cramming more on top. They ate ice cream that chilled them from within even as they were all a little sweaty again. It was a refreshing treat and the height of decadence. Cavorting half dressed, Ross and Jeremy in no shirts, Dem in only a shirt of Ross' and knickers, contriving an ice cream party, newly made beds and fans that would aim squarely upon them in the hot night after this happy rumpus of pleasure and chores found its end and a family who could survive their secrets good and bad, happy and sad, returned to their beds. The tinkle and clatter of all of them trying to eek out the last chilly drops from their cups with their spoons made Ross giggle. They were as greedy as each other, the Nampara Poldarks. Dem caught his eye and Jeremy crowed. "Prudie wouldn't like it!" As he strained to lick the last of his ice cream from the edge of the teacup, tipping his chin up like a man in a desert craving water. That this entire escapade began in Ross and Dem trying to secret their lovemaking from Prudie's attention made Jeremy's exclamation that much funnier. They had a good laugh. They were, all three, loathe to brush their teeth right away. To enjoy the creamy, cold, raspberry taste only to scrub it away at once seemed unfair. They sat Mama and the baby in the parlor and Jeremy helped Ross by handing him clothes pins as he hung the sheets on the line outside, still prancing about half dressed for bed. When all was fitty, Ross sat Jeremy on his lap to help him strum the black Gibson serenading Mama and the baby until the clock ticked quarter to four. Jeremy yawned. The race to get his teeth brushed and his feet clean before he conked out completely ensued. Ross took him upstairs and Dem put a pillow behind her back as she sat on the sofa. That helped her comfort as she sat but no sooner did she do that the sweat at the small of her back became evident. The sweet chill of the ice cream had gone. Ross returned. The smile on his face mirrored by Dem. They would keep these late hours with a more demanding task master soon, the son or daughter who would not know that the demands of the middle of the night or early morning were unreasonable. They had a last gasp of rebellion this night and a happy time with Jeremy who bloomed with excitement at his parents strange habits. "We may just avoid cock's crow. We're keeping the wrong hours!" smiled Dem. Ross grinned. "To bed?" asked Ross as he helped her out of the sofa. "Yes, Ross."

Prudie noticed many irregularities. The Poldarks, to a person, slept in, the lot of them snoring like a buzz saw in a hive of bees. Sheets were on the line and the ice cream she'd only just bought was decimated, only half remaining in a chopped out banditry, cleaved away in jagged ridges of cream and raspberry layers like a cavern in a worked out mine. Dem wandered into the kitchen first with Jeremy and Ross not far behind. "Morning, Prudie!" said Jeremy cheerfully. "Morning, Master Jeremy?" teased Prudie with the smile Jeremy always produced from her then turned her attention to Dem in a look of vexation. "Be more like afternoon!" Jeremy laughed as he mounted his seat and sat down. Prudie did not like it and Mama and Papa would earn a scold. He had a front row seat. Ross, Dem and Prudie shared a look. Ross pulled Dem's chair so she could sit. "Good... afternoon? Prudie..." smiled Ross. She scrutinized Ross' angelic blinking. "And wha be the goings on here!? Lyin' abed til this hour?" Ross and Dem and, most interestingly, Jeremy all smiled at Prudie as if butter wouldn't melt and telling no tales. She looked between them all and turned to Dem. "Well, all I know is you want t'watch yourself, maid. Ee gonna bring on tha babby like a slingshot! Reachin' an' draggin' an' pullin' laundry about!" Dem smiled a sunny grin. Prudie thought she had done the wash last night, not unheard of in Demelza's late trimester stubbornness. "Be all well an' good t'bring a new life in t'the world til it be swearin' like a fishwife an' gots two raspberries 'stead of proper eyes! Ee can't be mowin' through tha much ice cream however much ee think the babby be creenin' for un!" Prudie crossed her arms in a greater indignation. "An' took it straight from the tub like ee be raised in a barn!" Ross laughed. "Jeremy and I did the sheets last night, Prudie. We had to change the beds, there was nothing for it. We were too hot to sleep and we were all too sweaty." Dem said, primly, "And we all had ice cream, not just me. We ate it in those teacups," Prudie turned to see three teacups and three spoons on the dish drainer, washed clean and set to drain upside down. She turned and shook her head over them all. "Ee three be as mad as a bag o frogs!" They laughed. There was delight to be had in Prudie's scold and a happiness in their nighttime cavorting. She was as amused by their madcap as disgruntled. Prudie daubed her forehead in an amused defeat. The heat just would not shift. The Poldarks were incorrigible. "If'n ee be full up of ice cream an' slep' through breakfast wha d'ee expect t'eat now?" They did, all three, blink beseechingly at Prudie, grufflers all. "Lord above, sit down with ee, go on..." Ross sat down. Breakfast was served.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do You Want To Know A Secret?, The Beatles 1963
> 
> You'll never know how much I really love you  
> You'll never know how much I really care
> 
> Listen, do you want to know a secret?  
> Do you promise not to tell?  
> Whoa-oh-oh, closer  
> Let me whisper in your ear  
> Say the words you long to hear  
> I'm in love with you, ooh
> 
> Listen (doo da do), do you want to know a secret? (doo da do)  
> Do you promise not to tell? (doo da do)  
> Whoa-oh-oh, closer (doo da do)  
> Let me whisper in your ear (doo da do)  
> Say the words you long to hear  
> I'm in love with you, ooh
> 
> I've known a secret for a week or two  
> Nobody knows, just we two
> 
> Listen (doo da do), do you want to know a secret? (doo da do)  
> Do you promise not to tell? (doo da do)  
> Whoa-oh-oh, closer (doo da do)  
> Let me whisper in your ear (doo da do)  
> Say the words you long to hear  
> I'm in love with you, ooh, ooh, ooh
> 
> The heatwave of 1976 is better known but the previous one in 1955, in some areas, was actually more severe a drought than '76 and 1995. Denis Howell was formally appointed Minister of Drought.
> 
> Lughnasadh: Between Midsummer and the Autumn Equinox, the Anglo-Saxons marked the festival of hlaefmass - loaf mass or Lammas - at this time the beginning of harvest. Francis leading a Guldize chant in the fields, "Crying the neck" is a tradition of the end of harvest, honoring the final portion of cut grain.

**Author's Note:**

> Heatwave, Martha and the Vandellas 1963
> 
> Whenever I'm with him  
> Something inside  
> Starts to burning  
> And I'm filled with desire  
> Could it be a devil in me  
> Or is this the way love's supposed to be?
> 
> It's like a heat wave  
> Burning in my heart (It's like a heat wave)  
> I can't keep from crying (It's like a heat wave)  
> It's tearing me apart
> 
> Whenever he calls my name  
> Soft, low, sweet, and plain  
> Right then, right there, I feel that burning flame  
> Has high blood pressure got a hold on me  
> Or is this the way love's supposed to be?
> 
> It's like a heat wave  
> Burning in my heart (It's like a heat wave)  
> I can't keep from crying (It's like a heat wave)  
> It's tearing me apart
> 
> Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh  
> Ooh, heat wave  
> Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh  
> Ooh, heat wave
> 
> Sometimes I stare in space  
> Tears all over my face  
> I can't explain it, don't understand it  
> I ain't never felt like this before  
> Now that funny feeling has me amazed  
> Don't know what to do, my head's in a haze  
> It's like a heat wave
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah  
> (But it's all right, girl)  
> Oh  
> (Go ahead, girl)  
> Yeah, yeah  
> (Well, it's all right, girl)  
> Oh  
> (Can't miss it, that's love, girl)  
> I feel it burning  
> (Don't pass up this chance)  
> Right here in my heart  
> (It sounds like a true romance)  
> Don't you know it's like a heat wave?
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah (Burning, burning)  
> Oh (Burning, burning, burning)  
> Yeah, don't you know it's like a heat wave?  
> Burning right here (Burning, burning, burning)  
> In my heart (Burning, burning, burning)  
> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah (Burning, burning)  
> Oh (Burning, burning, burning)


End file.
